fred johnson

Yeah, I gotta laugh at that one. No kid changes their behavior because of better health care or better PSA campaigns. There has been concerted pushes to reduce dangerous behavior for decades, if not centuries. Adolescents have drives and needs. Every kid wants to find their own value and get the next rush whether adrenaline or drugs or dating. I've watched for 10 to 15 years now an extreme online culture where kids get their high by their online gaming or other online tools, etc. And it's not just a few kids. It's a large large portion of the kids. Many would rather stay home play

I remember years ago seeing how our troop planned and I was so proud. It was fun to watch the scouts work together and plan. But it was a reflection of a scoutmaster who knew the ideal and how to work toward that idea. Our SM would meet with the SPL days or week in advance and help the SPL plan the planning meeting. Organization. Agenda. How to run it. Needed tools. At the day of the planning meeting, the SM was in the back of the area sitting and mostly quiet. Sometimes answering a question, but mostly the SPL and PLs and SPL assistants ran the meeting. I think the huge huge fa

What you did is fine. It's represented and considered as part of the plan. I tell scouts to put it under supplies as the comment right above supplies says "Supplies are things you use up, such as food and refreshments, gasoline, masking tape, tarps, safety supplies, and garbage bags". As long as you show your planning, what you did is just fine.

Of course ... IA should be drastically changing in the next year with the use of ScoutBook instead of the IA web site. Look forward to seeing if it really happens.

If the unit is delivering computer generated reports ... if people have a computer, they are online and should be doing Online Advancement to avoid the issue. Handing over a paper sheet always introduces error. Use online advancement and print the scout shop pick sheet from there. Or upload your CSV file. That's how you avoid the issue. ... But if you are using a computer to generate the report, you don't have a tech issue.

Ultimately, units are responsible for their own data. Period. Scouting is a pyramid. 40 scouts per unit. 40 units per district. 5 to 20 districts per council. 200+ councils per BSA. Each higher level can identify failure points and push the lower level to do better. But ultimately if Johnny is missing a merit badge, it's Johnny and his unit leaders that own the issue. If units don't want to use online advancement, then they can ask the council registrar to run a report and mail it to them. They can identify errors and send back requests to get the data fixed. If they don't have o

Also, limiting food ... being told where to sleep (walked to an unknown place, without tent, with only what they could carry, etc) ... roping them together ... standing in formation multiple times ... limited information on what's happening ... etc. It was a meaningful and special experience to me. Not everyone will be glad they were put through it. But it is pretty much the exact definition of hazing. Especially as you can't become a member without going through the "ordeal". Sort of breaks the "friendly" promise of scouting.

Biggest mistake I ever made in scouts was not to deal with bad behavior early enough. I was once impressed by a cub scout presenter. There was a scout that could not sit still to participate. The tiger cub was extremely disruptive. Extremely. The presenter paused, explained the issue to the tiger cub and if he could not behave, he'd ask him to leave. The scout did not behave. the presenter ask the cub scout to leave. It's a hard lesson to give, but an important one. Just as important, if you don't do it, you drag everyone down. The scout program has great flexibility to dea

A few years ago, there was huge confusion when our council stopped entering paper submitted sheets into the BSA online database. It was a volunteer role and it would not always be timely or accurate. As virtually 100% of units had online capabilities, the council viewed it now as a unit job to enter the data. Some units did not notice or realize the significance. they would bring paper advancement records to the scout shop and buy the awards. AND, they would assume someone was entering the data. Nope. The confusion was no one was entering the data. I wonder if you are in the same si

I agree with your points, very strongly. The induction process looks very dated. If my son didn't want to go into OA, I'd be okay with it. Sad, but okay.

I wish this was emphasized more. It's a great view.

I don't oppose OA. Having an honor society of scouting seems right. To get in is an honor. But to be honest, there is not much to it beyond that. Scouts go through the OA ordeal. Maybe they continue to brotherhood. Beyond that, 99% of the arrowmen don't do anything else. Those that do more essentially invest their time in running OA elections and OA ceremonies. ... sort of a self-important pyramid scheme ... get called out for OA --> go through ordeal --> now you can help others get called out --> they go through ordeal --> now they help with elections and ceremonies -->

Andysmom is right. Districts can't hold money. All money is council money. Popcorn. FOS. Rechartering. Districts can charge for specific events and activities, but profit or loss hits the council bank account. Even event budgeting and approvals is a council thing.

Is that a "national" change or a local change? I actually think it's a good idea. Summer camps are always filled with way too many adults. I think it damages the experience for the youth. But it will still get circumvented. I can't see a scout camp saying a dad or mom can't camp overnight with the troop for a few nights. OR the night before a kid leaves camp. If that is a BSA new rule, it's worth it's own thread.

It just seems wrong and destructive to even think about scheduling elections just because of this. Even asking a scout to resign is just too far.. Sometimes adult leaders try to make improvements and it's at the cost of scouts. That's what I'm seeing here. Read the Guide To Advancement relevant sections and maybe even a few Advancement News articles. It's always good to read the official BSA guidance as it's carefully worded. Advancement News Feb 2012 ... http://www.scouting.org/filestore/advancement_news/512-075_Feb.pdf ... POR discussed Guide To Advancement Section 4.2.3.4 ...

My prayers and sympathies to you and your family. This is a very hard and difficult situation from all perspectives. I doubt we are hearing the full story such as does the troop have position specific performance expectations or are there other issues. But even then, if the SPL has been doing "okay" for five months and needs to assign an activity / campout to an ASPL or other scout, that's always fine. Conflicts happen. It's about how the situation is handled. So your situation does not seem abnormal. The reason I say we are not hearing the full story is that taking away a pos

Absolutely direct connection. It costs unit more to charter them. So we don't charter them. So they don't commit to training and background checks and ....

Absolutely true. At one point , I had four sons concurrently in scouting. It was bleeding me dry. I remember seeing my cost at about $7500 per year. Right now, I only have two active sons in scouts as the others aged out. I project my explicit cost right now at $2500 per year for them. That includes splitting cost of one high adventure and several moderate adventures over the term of their membership. Add another $1000 for indirect costs (spending money, patches, trinkets, tenting equipment and supplies). Plus, another $1000 for being a committed leader (training, meetings, pulling

I hugely agree with this. when the fee went from $15 to $24, our pack revisited our budget. To make the numbers work, our pack changed adult rechartering practices because the pack pays the cost and the adults mostly didn't care. Specifically, the pack only rechartered the bare minimum committee members (committee chair plus 1 ??). Direct contact adult leaders were reduced to CM, ACM and DL. No more rechartering assistant den leaders. So while the cost went up to $24, our pack cost was about the same or even lessened a few dollars. We did the same at the troop level. Best thing we

What I'm seeing is the families that sign up for scouts also already sign up for baseball, soccer, etc. So what I see happening is families get too busy and burnt out. So they have to drop something and choose scouts. It leaves people with a bad image of scouts and an image of scouts that is based on 1st grade activities (not boy scouts). I'd rather let people try soccer, baseball, etc and when they learn their son won't be a pro-ball player and want to try something new, then let them try scouts. It would be at the age of scouts beginning to be independent and using knives and fire and e

Agreed. My oldest started Tigers in September 2000. It was okay. Not great. The program was an orange t-shirt and casual. If I had to do it again, I'd have each of them join in 3rd or 4th grade. I would not be sad if they didn't join until 5th grade. Maybe the point they started using knives and fire on their own. I just don't think there was enough guts to the program or enough reason to participate so early. And it just made Cub Scouts a 15 year leadership program for my wife and I. Glad to see it's over. Made some good friends. Had some good events. But the reasons I wante

Agreed. The BSA program becomes interesting and a big value proposition for ages 10 to 16. Yet now we have them join at age five and they are burnt out on the program before hitting the core program where BSA shines and the program becomes easier to run.

Here here. Cub scout family burn-out will be the biggest long-term killer for the Boy Scout program. Families burn out on scouts way way before Boy Scout ages. IMHO, it's the biggest killer of the program and will be for decades to come as grandparents warn their kids how much work it was for them. And the kids (now parents) don't have memories of the Boy Scout program as their family gave up before crossing over.

Oh so true. We've had multi-year long spans when it works right. Then we have multi-year spans when it ain't so perfect. It's a hard balance. I always believe in knowing the ideal and working toward it. In scouting, the ideal is scouts with scouts and adults with adults and the bridge is SPL / SM friendly coaching. I also agree that you need to keep adults busy otherwise they drift away or drift into the path of scouts. I've always thought that is best done through adults cooking really well or playing games.

I hugely agree with that. My opinion is it's way way too hard to keep adults working in a parallel direction. We all feel so strongly about scouts and the program our sons are in that it's extremely difficult to step back and let just one person be the interaction contact.